


So Called Last

by LiteralPantry



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Because I am feeling things and I need to write it out, Chronicles of the Moon Festival, D&D, Kirkwell, M/M, Other, especially if he be pining, might as well express what my boy is feeling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24551455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiteralPantry/pseuds/LiteralPantry
Summary: What do you think about before your final moments? Tumulus has only moments before his fighter companion Aeryn drops a crystal chandelier on top his low health party.
Relationships: Tumulus/Taajir
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	So Called Last

Let's get this straight first, I never lose a gamble. 

I've always been a lucky kid my whole life, learning and perfecting the slight of hand, to weigh in the odds, or to trust my instincts and just go for it. So when I finally decide it's worth partaking in something risky, something just happens to me, you know? I have a sense of a rush over me, this adrenaline pulsing through my veins like liquid fire, burning in every part of the nervous system I have. It's that anticipation of what's going to become my outcome. I mean sure, sometimes knowing that I have the upper hand gives me the satisfaction of watching the others defeat sink in. However, the real thrill is waiting on the wild card that you have no idea what is coming, and then the absolute high of winning something impossible.

Or that everything's up in the air waiting the crash down all around me. 

It’s a moment of free falling, and sometimes the best feeling in the world. To hold your breath and yet not run out of air. I’ve been told I get that sparkle shine in my eyes even though you don't know if it's going to be extinguished in the next turn. It could be the jackpot or game over. 

But like I said, I never lose. 

My whole life has been a gamble. I cut my losses at the orphanage, to be picked up by a notorious mafia leader. It has its perks of learning survival from the best, you know at the cost of self depreciation under the guise of confidence and arrogance. 

I have learned all the tricks in the book to perform like every day was my last.

Though I didn’t know it was going to end up like this. Never did I think I would be kicked and bruised, beaten and thrown onto the tile of the Baron’s estate, hearing his confessions as if one of us were going to send them to one of the gods. Him bargaining my silence in favor of not taking another’s life. The lives of my father and Taajir-

Taajir, the man who I have cherished my entire life, battered and demoralized by the fissures of Kirkwell’s unscrupulous system he never had known of.

Never did I think I would have been able to pull out my parchment of grievances, and try to charm my way out of one last fight. I would take that gamble. To then being thrown in the middle of a fight because our party was-- fucking ass wild. From being the kidnapped, to being the one who was taking the Baron hostage- it was all a blur. It was almost like it went from throwing pebble insults to grabbing boulders into the water and watching the ripples turn into crashing waves. Garreth freed me from my bindings to let me go and free Taajir and even now, the color of the raging sea were still so rich, even if the lustrous shimmer had washed away. 

“Take my dad and get out of here.” I was never serious with him in my life. At least not like this. I needed to convince him to leave. He needed to be the one to escape if something was to go awry. If none of us did, he could save the people. 

He always saved me, he could save anyone.

_Listen to me, dammit!_

“Alright-- be careful.” Thank the gods, they’re leaving. No- No I don’t want to remember him like this. Fuck I don’t want to remember him like this-

  
“If you come back, you better be ready to fight.” And he smiled at me. He cracked a smile and it was for me. Confrontation to this? Absolutely not. I’m not scared. Hell no. Pushing him away, I run back into the fight. The Baron tries to use his magic on us, tries to use my own mind against me. Not this time bitch. I will not bow to you. I refuse… to bow to you any longer.

But Zhernon crumbles to the ground, and he is lifeless. Oh no… no no… And I just feel this hot air build up in my lungs and I unleash it, I repel the man trying to kill him and I just need to bring him back.

You’re not leaving me now. Not ever. Don’t you think about it. I can’t lose you too. Don’t you dare. And before you know it, the Baron staring us down from the right, and into the eyes of Zehari who bared on our left. Stranded in the middle of the grand entrance hall surrounded by guards on guards. Wake up dammit. Wake up-

“ASS KNIFE!”

Aeryn… what the fuck did you just say? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? What the _fuck_ am I supposed to be getting from that? No-- that’s- an entirely different situation that I don’t- then the shining of a blade was spinning through the air. 

Oh my god. My eyes flicker up to remind myself of the grand display of wealth: the grand chandelier made of crystal glass, softly shimmering in oil light that already danced around the room. _Oh my god_. We hear metal reverberating against the one thing holding the lighting, and that was when the knot was tied in my gut. 

But Zhernon hasn’t woken up. Zehari was closer to a place safer than where he was. But that fucking Baron might just--

Instinct takes over. I can’t make a strategy. This gamble was the wild card. 

“Go.”

I had practically shoved the body of my fallen friend to the other, and I turned tail and I stared down the man I have _despised_ since the beginning. The Baron of Kirkwell who I have always said was up to no good and was a corrupt man. Usually I meant it as a ‘fuck the system, stick it to the man’ kind of way but knowing what he’s done…

I don’t care if he takes me with him, this ends tonight. And he locks eyes on mine and I make sure he knows just what he was about to get. 

_Roll the dice, and fucking go for it, Tumulus. Do this for him. For them. For you._

My body collides with his smaller one, and we struggle to figure out who takes the fall first. Who was going to crumble under the pressure. But the Baron forgets that pressure is what gets me ticking. That is when I am at my strongest.

My axis has jolted as I throw my weight backwards, hitting the ground hard. The wind wants to leave my lungs, but I now tangle my limbs against his, my arms locking over his and behind his head. The man is struggling against me, and I’m beginning to realize what this meant. This is where I die. This is where a crystal chandelier is going to impale me, and this evil man. I can’t think straight- hell have I ever? I have to put myself into a state of mind to not feel a thing. _This is Muggy, I’m wrestling her so she doesn’t win another damn thirty gold from me_. Soft jingling of crystals against each other on the other hand just me back to my fate. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to bury my face in the man’s hair I was going to _die_ taking down- I can’t be afraid.  
  
But I am. 

I hold my breath, and I hear the sickening snap. I never knew this was what it was to suffocate, waiting for the crash of pain to take over. 

I shut my eyes tight, and tighten my grip on this son of a bitch.

Then memories start flooding in, and tears start pricking the corners of my eyes. I didn’t think it would be like this at all: how me playing in a square of the alright lookin’ city of Kirkwell would result in someone causing me to trip and break my lute. Which caused a number of chain reactions. Cause me to follow and curse at a group of travelers who I just well, tagged along with. They didn’t want me there. No one even invited me. Not that people usually did- I just…  
I wanted to.

Replaying the nights where we sat on the floor of a tavern room paid by the Baron himself, and I forged friendships I never thought I deserved. Saved some pirates in a heat of blazing glory, with a sea monk- Pirate retired Zehari. Ran through the streets after a tiny bastard mugged a hungover Aeryn. About defending those without a voice because I wished someone did it for me when I didn’t have one. Finding a kindred spirit in Zhernon, who somehow saw me as well… he saw _me_. 

Has Taajir ever saw me like that before? God I hope so.

I learned more about myself in the small span of a month than I had in the last thirty two years of my life- about my inner power. I thought that was a load of crap but I actually- have potential. I wasn’t worthless in a battle just because I wasn’t someone who could shoot an arrow and look like a badass ranger. Or a retired pirate who has literally traveled the seas and became a monk who could probably choke you with a glare. And I know I couldn’t flail around a sword or stick one up my ass- _fucking ass knife_. Was that his- Oh fuck him.

I had goddamn potential. I was able to disintegrate a shadow lunarli down with a fucking strum of my lute, caused creatures of all to bend knee to my orcastrated symphonies of resistance and offense. Stirred up the powers of the element I was born with, and used them to harness the abilities I never forced myself to tap into. Being a smooth talking bargaining piece was no longer the extent of my worth. 

But I remember learning the basics; roll the dice and win the game. To use my charm as a weapon of someone’s demise. Drinking with my old man underneath a Festival Moon creating what could be a family memory… to then my girl, if not my best friend in the entire world. Muggy. Oh that girl. Memories of scaling rooftops with Mugs, and going through the underground to make deals and smuggles. Hearing her adventures of escaping this damn-

I never left this city. 

I don’t _know_ what else was out there. I spent my whole life working for someone that sculpted me into his image of astute prodigy. Because I, being the incendiary troubadour who had fallen for a guard who may never return the gifted heart, and always stayed because there was always that _what if he loved me back_ . Someone who could be so innately good when I have to find it in myself to actually _try_ to think of anyone but myself.

But then again… did I stay here for myself… or for them?

Taajir? What would you… no.

What would I do if I had more time?

Tell you I care? That I got arrested sometimes just to see your scowl of disapproval- To hear your words of ‘ _You know, next time it might not be me’,_ and yet time and time again, it was always you. To that one stupid time of many I was shit faced and told you that you were handsome and you smiled? 

I meant it every time. 

Maybe it’s because you’re a soldier. I mean I have to face the facts- you being with someone like me was out of the question- because you deserved better than me. A Street Rat. Vermin. A man with a record possibly as long as the bridge- I can say that now- I crossed it. If you even thought about me, you might just regret it as soon as it was to happen.

I wouldn’t regret you. That’s damn near impossible.

If you can defend the ones you love for even another day, this will be worth it. If my friends can get out of the way and survive, then they’ll at least play songs with my name. Maybe the Lunerlai will at least know I fought for them to be free. Maybe someone will remember me.

Maybe you will miss me.

Please don’t.

_I love you._

And it was all happening at once: bones being compressed into the tile beneath me, my body constricting every muscle of the Baron so he doesn’t move from my hold. The crashing of something pressed on top, like a huge weighted blanket and then it became lead sitting on me. The blinding pain that was even worse than the screams of the damned. The deafening shatter of breaking fragments resounded within the hall, and then falling into an eerie silence. I feel something warm dripping onto my face. He’s bleeding isn’t he? A crystal embedding into the Baron’s skull, and he was tasting the iron, the scent burning his nostrils. 

Why was I still _thinking_? I don’t want to open my eyes- I don’t want to know. I don’t want to see my friends looking for me- I don’t want to see Taajir coming back and finding me like this, nearly crushed to-

Nearly?

Wait.

I open an eye, and feel a drop of something hit it. I blink rapidly as I am unable to make a sound. I don’t want to look- but I open both now, unable to keep myself from seeing what had befallen me and the-

**_Holy shit_ **.

The weight wasn’t only from my building dread and impending doom. An orc body was overtop of us, massive and mammoth. His corpse weighing down on us like a mudslide, crushing our lungs, taking the brunt force of crystal shards. The only orc in the room was… _oh no_ . **_Garreth_ **.

_“Please, protect my family and free me.”_

**I charmed him, and he came to my aid. It was my fault he died.**

It’s like I’m choking on air. I feel like I can’t breathe. I know I can hold my breath if I need to but I feel sick. I can’t make a sound. My voice feels like it’s been crumpled up and tossed away like a bad declaration. I can’t let go of this fucker even if I tried. 

Well shit. 

I made another gamble jumping in. I guess I haven't lost yet. 


End file.
